Early life

Ṣaddām was born into a peasant family in northern Iraq. He joined the Baʿth Party in 1957. In 1959 he participated in an unsuccessful attempt by Baʿthists to assassinate the Iraqi prime minister, ʿAbd al-Karīm Qāsim; Ṣaddām was wounded in the attempt and escaped first to Syria and then to Egypt. He attended Cairo Law School (1962–63) and continued his studies at Baghdad Law College after the Baʿthists took power in Iraq in 1963. The Baʿthists were overthrown that same year, however, and Ṣaddām spent several years in prison in Iraq. He escaped, becoming a leader of the Baʿth Party, and was instrumental in the coup that brought the party back to power in 1968. Ṣaddām effectively held power in Iraq along with the head of state, Pres. Aḥmad Ḥasan al-Bakr, and in 1972 he directed the nationalization of Iraq’s oil industry.

Presidency

Ṣaddām began to assert open control of the government in 1979 and became president upon Bakr’s resignation. He then became chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council and prime minister, among other positions. He used an extensive secret-police establishment to suppress any internal opposition to his rule, and he made himself the object of an extensive personality cult among the Iraqi public. His goals as president were to supplant Egypt as leader of the Arab world and to achieve hegemony over the Persian Gulf.

Ṣaddām Ḥussein, 1983.J. Pavlovsky/SygmaṢaddām launched an invasion of Iran’s oil fields in September 1980, but the campaign bogged down in a war of attrition. The cost of the war and the interruption of Iraq’s oil exports caused Ṣaddām to scale down his ambitious programs for economic development. The Iran-Iraq War dragged on in a stalemate until 1988, when both countries accepted a cease-fire that ended the fighting. Despite the large foreign debt with which Iraq found itself saddled by war’s end, Ṣaddām continued to build up his armed forces.

In August 1990 the Iraqi army overran neighbouring Kuwait. Ṣaddām apparently intended to use that nation’s vast oil revenues to bolster Iraq’s economy, but his occupation of Kuwait quickly triggered a worldwide trade embargo against Iraq. He ignored appeals to withdraw his forces from Kuwait, despite the buildup of a large U.S.-led military force in Saudi Arabia and the passage of United Nations (UN) resolutions condemning the occupation and authorizing the use of force to end it. The Persian Gulf War began on Jan. 16, 1991, and ended six weeks later when the allied military coalition drove Iraq’s armies out of Kuwait. Iraq’s crushing defeat triggered internal rebellions by both Shīʿites and Kurds, but Ṣaddām suppressed their uprisings, causing thousands to flee to refugee camps along the country’s northern border. Untold thousands more were murdered, many simply disappearing into the regime’s prisons.

Thirty-foot-tall bronze sculptures of former Iraqi dictator Ṣaddām Ḥussein, on the grounds of the Republican Palace, Baghdad, 2005.Jim Gordon, CIV/U.S. Department of DefenseAs part of the cease-fire agreement with the UN, Iraq was prohibited from producing or possessing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Numerous sanctions were leveled on the country pending compliance, and these caused severe disruption of the economy. Ṣaddām’s continued refusal to cooperate with UN arms inspectors led to a four-day air strike by the United States and Great Britain in late 1998 (Operation Desert Fox). Both countries announced that they would support efforts of the Iraqi opposition to unseat Ṣaddām, whose regime had grown increasingly brutal under UN sanctions, but the Iraqi leader barred UN weapons inspectors from entering his country. In the interim it became clear that Ṣaddām was grooming one of his sons—ʿUdayy or Quṣayy—to succeed him. Both were elevated to senior positions, and both mirrored the brutality of their father. Moreover, Ṣaddām continued to solidify his control at home, while he struck a profoundly defiant and anti-American stance in his rhetoric. Though increasingly feared at home, Ṣaddām was viewed by many in the Arab world as the only regional leader willing to stand up to what they saw as American aggression.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001, the U.S. government, asserting that Ṣaddām might provide terrorist groups with chemical or biological weapons, sought to renew the disarmament process. Though Ṣaddām allowed UN weapons inspectors to return to Iraq in November 2002, his failure to cooperate fully with the investigations frustrated the United States and Great Britain and led them to declare an end to diplomacy. On March 17, 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush ordered Ṣaddām to step down from office and leave Iraq within 48 hours or face war; he also indicated that, even if Ṣaddām left the country, U.S. forces might be needed to stabilize the new government and search for weapons of mass destruction. When Ṣaddām refused to leave, U.S. and allied forces launched an attack on Iraq on March 20.

Ṣaddām Ḥussein following his capture by U.S. forces in Tikrīt, Iraq, December 14, 2003.U.S. Department of DefenseThe opening salvo of the Iraq War was an assault by U.S. aircraft on a bunker complex in which Ṣaddām was thought to be meeting with subordinates. Although the attack failed to kill the Iraqi leader, subsequent attacks directed against Ṣaddām made it clear that eliminating him was a major goal of the invasion. Always obstinate in his tone, Ṣaddām exhorted Iraqis to lay down their lives to stop U.S. and British forces, but resistance to the invasion soon crumbled, and on April 9, the day Baghdad fell to U.S. soldiers, Ṣaddām fled into hiding. He took with him the bulk of the national treasury and was initially able to evade capture by U.S. troops. His sons, ʿUdayy and Quṣayy, were cornered and killed in Mosul on July 22, but it was not until December 13 that Ṣaddām was finally captured. The once dapper leader was pulled, disheveled and dirty, from a small underground hiding place near a farmhouse in the vicinity of his native Tikrīt. Although he was armed, Ṣaddām surrendered to U.S. soldiers without firing a shot.

Trial and execution

Ṣaddām Ḥussein appearing in a Baghdad courtroom, 2004.U.S. Department of DefenseṢaddām Ḥussein sitting before an Iraqi judge at a courthouse in Baghdad, 2004.SSGT D. Myles Cullen, USAF/U.S. Department of DefenseIn October 2005 Ṣaddām went on trial before the Iraqi High Tribunal, a panel court established to try officials of the former Iraqi government. He and several codefendants were charged with the killing of 148 townspeople in Al-Dujayl, a mainly Shīʿite town, in 1982. Throughout the nine-month trial, Ṣaddām interrupted the proceedings with angry outbursts, claiming that the tribunal was a sham and that U.S. interests were behind it. The tribunal finally adjourned in July 2006 and handed down its verdicts in November. Ṣaddām was convicted of crimes against humanity, including willful killing, illegal imprisonment, deportation, and torture, and was sentenced to death by hanging. Ṣaddām’s half brother (an intelligence officer) and Iraq’s former chief judge also were sentenced to death. Days after an Iraqi court upheld his sentence in December 2006, Ṣaddām was executed.